Published 4th February 2025 by Tinder Press.
From the cover of the book:
Birdie's keeping it together, of course she is. So she's a little hungover on her shifts, and has to bring her daughter to the lodge while she waits never tables, but it's a tough town to be a single mother, and Birdie just needs to get by.And then Birdie meets Arthur, who is quieter than most men, but makes her want to listen; who is gentle with Emaleen, and understands Birdie's fascination with the mountains in whose shadow they live. When Arthur asks Birdie and Emaleen to leave the lodge and make a home, just the three of them, in his off-grid cabin, Birdie's answer, in a heartbeat, is yes.
Out in the wilderness Birdie's days are harsher and richer than she ever imagined possible. Here she, and Emaleen, will learn the whole, fearful truth about Arthur.
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Single mother Birdie is struggling to make ends meet, waiting tables in an Alaskan roadside bar and lodge house. She likes to party to knock the edges off her hard existence in a tough town, which makes her less than ideally suited for the responsibilities of motherhood, but she loves her daughter Emaleen fiercely. As much as she would love to give her daughter the kind of childhood she had in the wilds of the tundra, she is reluctant forgo her independence by relying on a man, no matter how messy her life is right now. Until she notices softly spoken loner Arthur Neilsen.
Arthur, with his scarred face and deliberate way of speaking rarely visits town, preferring the solitude of the wilderness.. Rumours abound about his strange ways, but Birdie feels something stirring within her heart. When Arthur asks her and Emaleen to come and live with him at his cabin in the woods, Birdie is delighted to have the chance to create the life for them she has always wanted, with a man she can love. But real life seldom brings the happily-ever-after of a fairy tale.
Eowyn Ivey's Black Woods Blue Sky is a novel which combines a weaving tale of magical realism with the gritty reality of life in a remote Alaskan town, in an imaginative retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It is quite difficult to talk in detail about the story without giving away too much, but essentially, Birdie falls for a mysterious man who has secrets, and her picture of domestic happiness in the wilds takes a strange turn when she learns that life with Arthur brings danger as well as fulfilment.
In many ways I am still making up my mind about this book. It provokes some very complicated feelings, which are difficult to resolve given the course of the relationship side of the story. But I absolutely loved Ivey's writing. She brings the wilds of Alaska alive in such atmospheric detail, showing its beauty and its darkness in way that is truly impressive. I have never thought about this far away place in quite these terms before, but Ivey makes you see there is so much more to this place than snow, ice, desolation, and danger from Mother nature in all her 'red in tooth and claw' guise.
Ivey plays beautifully with her themes throughout this novel, eliciting a tangled mix of feelings as the slowburn plot develops. By telling the story through the narratives of Birdie, Emaleen, and Arthur's father Warren, she delves into so many facets of the bonds of family, friendship, the responsibilities of parenthood, and what befalls us once love enters the equation. It is beautifully done. Expect emotions linger long after you turn the final page of this one...
Black Woods Blue Sky is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Tinder Press for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.
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